


Hell or High Water

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: 2nd Time Around (TMNT 2014) [12]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Bay Movies), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: A bad night gets even worse, Canon-Typical Violence, Discussions of character backgrounds/pasts, F/M, Family Relationships - Freeform, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Relationships Exposed, Unlikely Friendships, coming to terms, unnamed character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 16:16:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12844860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: It starts at nine p.m.  And it just gets worse from there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: This one has more violence than my previous works in this series. Please heed the warning.

It begins at nine p.m. _Supernova_ is a hole-in-the-wall with grandeur dreams of being the hottest place in town, as evidenced by the choice of business title. The Purple Dragons are known for frequenting this dump eight days out of the week. Their reputation precedes them, so the bartenders and bouncers know the risks of catering to this lot. But their behemoth leader also has a reputation, and a threat poised some months back when _Supernova_ was in the early stages of construction, so no one makes a comment and, when the inevitable occurs (and it always occurs, like clockwork), no one talks to the cops. Saw nothing, heard nothing, etc.

Stephen Valdez is considered a rarity by his colleagues, but that’s not necessarily a compliment. He graduated from the academy fifteen years prior, worked his way through a few small-town departments before finally landing his dream job in New York. Went through too-many months on graves without complaint, simultaneously covered day and swing shifts with great enthusiasm (and a passionate affair with caffeine), and finally slid into an opening on swings two months ago.

This isn’t his first bar fight. This definitely isn’t his first trip to _Supernova_. This is, however, his first bar fight at _Supernova_ where the action climaxed in a crater blown through the north wall.

“You expect me to believe none of you saw or heard _that_.” He points, emphatically, at the destroyed wall. Empty stares, a couple dry blinks, and shrugged shoulders.

He hates this place.

“Don’t waste your breath, kid.” They always refer to him a ‘kid’. He doesn’t know why. Sure, he isn’t necessarily the poster boy for beefed-up police hunk, but he’s earning his stripes in the force and isn’t some half-pint graduate. “We’ve got who we need.”

“You nabbed one of the Dragons?” his ears perk and his tone lifts in hope. The Purple Dragons are dangerous and slippery: a terrible combination for police work, so far as he’s concerned. To catch one at the scene is enough to make him buy a lotto ticket, just for how lucky this is turning out.

“Better.” Detective Marx says, jabbing a finger over the right shoulder. Stephen looks, like a kid peeking in store windows near Christmas, and immediately frowns. Looks to the left, then to the right, and finally back in the indicated direction. The man is pointing at two women, early twenties, being guarded by two other uniforms.

His bewilderment must show. (Momma always said he has a terrible poker face.) “Little Miss Hot-Pants is a familiar face. Runs with the Dragons. Says she don’t,” Stephen has learned to not correct his partner’s atrocious grammar, but the urge still teases his tongue until he’s forced to bite the restless muscle before it gets him in trouble, “but you take her word for a grain of salt, got it?”

“What about the other one?”

The detective makes a dramatic roll of the eyes. “Even worse: April O’Neil. Reporter pain-in-the-ass. Better zip your lip around her, ‘less you wanna make tomorrow’s front news, misquoted all the way to Tallahassee.”

He watches, over the shoulder, while Marx rattles off such unflattering introductions. Both women have turned their heads and are glaring at the man’s large girth. In the club’s poor lighting (and the fact that Marx will bend his ear all the way back to city jail if he notices a wandering eye), Stephen can’t make out exact details, but he’s quite willing to bet there are pronounced scowls to go along with those glares.

He gets shouldered with the task of escorting both to the jail, to be booked and fingerprinted and all that mess. They go without incident. (He frowns and almost says something, when Detective Marx shoves Miss O’Neil hard against the car door, “Checking the fit,” he says, “so she doesn’t slip away,” but bites his tongue again. There is a hierarchy here, and he’s learned to keep his head down.)

He pauses, key in the ignition and engine purring, then flicks the recording system on. Just in case. Spontaneous admissions make for happy prosecutors.

The drive shouldn’t be long, but New York traffic is terrible on any given night. After the first twelve minutes, he’s tempted to run the sirens. But this isn’t an emergency, and he’ll hear about it if he violates protocol.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap.

He blinks. Checks the keys, to see if something is knocking against the steering column. Nope. Something loose in the front seats? Negative.

Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. Tap.

Maybe something is rocking around in the trunk. Or (and really, isn’t this the most obvious scenario?) maybe one of the two in the back just have a nervous reaction and are tapping their feet. Understandable. Perfectly understandable.

“You know,” he clears his throat, twice, “if you two want to explain what happened…I can talk to the DA. Tell them you cooperated. Might get yourselves a good deal.”

Silence. Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap.

“I mean…how do you blow a hole in a brick wall?” That’s a leading question. The prosecutors don’t like leading questions. Defense attorneys jump on that with claims of ‘entrapment’ and the like.

Silence. No more tapping.

He sighs. “We’re here.” he mumbles, unnecessarily. Pulls into the garage and turns off the recorder. Gets out, walks around to the other side, and his jaw drops in the same second he opens the door.

“Oh my—!” and, honestly, he shouldn’t be so shocked at a little blood. Not in New York. “I didn’t even notice—you guys need to get to a hospital!”

“Trust me,” Miss O’Neil says, speaking for the first time, and he can’t help thinking she has a very pretty voice, and she probably is exceptionally attractive when not covered in grime, blood, and sporting a horrible gash across the forehead, “we’ve had worse.”

*** 

“C’mon, O’Neil,” Marx says, gracing the lowly booking cell with his presence, “just talk, and I’ll see if I can get you a cell with a good view.”

Karai doesn’t know much about Detective Marx. She’s heard the name a couple times, seen him at least as often, and is aware he holds her in no high regard. But then again, none of them really do.

April, evidently, has a more personal history with this old walrus. No, that’s not a valid description; if she’s to select from the animal kingdom, she thinks he resembles an elephant seal: as much girth and equally unattractive in looks. At any rate, her unexpected companion is giving him a look of pure disgust which can only be borne from unsavory past encounters.

“Last chance,” he says, almost like dropping a threat, “let’s hear it.”

“Nothing to say, Marx.” April says, tone chilled. “I have a gesture for you, but my hands aren’t available.”

Karai scowls, once Marx has hefted his bulk away with an unkind reply, and rolls her head to the left. “Classy.”

“You’re one to talk.” The brunette is in a mood tonight, to say the least. One might be so presumptuous to infer her prickly demeanor is to blame for the fiasco that is this night, but Karai is neither so presumptuous nor quick to pass judgment. It was, so to speak, a comedy of errors. Except the ‘comedy’ is lacking, considerably.

She rolls her shoulders back, hoping for the tiniest bit of relief and receiving none, then slumps against the chilled plaster. “Do you think he was listening?”

It’s a foolish question. Where April is, the other half is always. If not physically in body, then with eyes that see all and ears unerringly sharp and attentive. He lives in her shadow, follows her footsteps, breathes in the air through which she has passed. Phantom-like, she supposes, but the title doesn’t fit him. His is a kinder presence than faceless specters in the dark. His is the watchful guard of a lover devoted unconditionally.

She breathes, slowly, and leans deeper into the wall. The chill is fading under her body heat, but there’s still enough cool residue to prick at her bare arms.

Bare arms. A lump tightens in her throat, and she swallows with difficulty. Her jacket. That beautiful assembly of black cloth and leather, sewn with care and diligence to perfection. Foolish, she knows, to be so sentimental, but damned if that wasn’t the most precious gift anyone ever gave her.

It was the only gift anyone ever gave her. Shredder scoffed at notions of materialistic exchanges: wasteful, selfish, proof of humanity’s arrogance. She was born without the gift of a mother’s love or father’s kindness; she had no reason, for so long, to believe her master wrong or doubt his words. Then…

_Raphael._

“He was right. The cop.” Karai says, around a soft sigh. “You should be going to a hospital. They nearly split your skull open.”

April huffs without amusement. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Silence, again. Karai sits and ponders, with more seriousness than such an offhand comment really warrants. After all, people use those words without care, without effort. It means nothing. No one really expects a response. It is considered rhetorical.

She exhales, slow, heavy. “Raphael has been sneaking out for months. Lying to his brothers. To his father.”

In the peripheral, she sees April’s brow wrinkle and the corners of her pretty mouth curve down. “And you know this because…?”

And the penny drops. “Because he’s been sneaking out to see me.”

***

“We gotta go after them!”

“Oh, really?” Leonardo huffs, arms tight across his chest, “And what’s your master plan, Raph? Break down a few walls and hope no one notices? Forget it. We’re staying right here.”

“Leo—”

“I said _no_.”

Raphael glares and growls, but Big Brother is unmoved. Leo makes a comment about how April can handle herself and even if Karai tried anything—and that’s the point when Raphael stops listening, because just bringing up Karai’s name drops him unkindly at a crossroads. Granted, a place he knew he’d end up sooner or later, but not like this.

(If pressed, he’ll admit he had some grand fantasy of Karai unexpectedly sweeping in to lend a hand, maybe when they were dealing with the Dragons or something, and the brothers are so impressed that all ends up forgiven. A bone-headed delusion, for sure, but a guy can dream, right?)

“She won’t try anything.” He mumbles. His brothers are arguing, loudly, but Mikey’s ears hear all and he swivels in place.

“Who?”

“Karai.” Raphael hates this, hates how uncomfortable he suddenly is to be the center of all attention, and he really hates how Leo’s eyes are immediately dark with suspicion. “She…she wouldn’t try anything.”

Silence, then a couple heavy steps forward from Big Brother. “Being a little charitable, aren’t you, Raph?”

There’s a distinct chill in his tone that spells trouble. Maybe now is the time to backpedal and shrug every previous comment off without regret.

Except he can’t. He can’t do that, because of the memory of her in his arms and her voice in his ear is branded on the memory. _“I love you. I love you.”_ She loves him. She _loves_ him, damn it. He can’t just shrug that off. He should. But he can’t.

“She wouldn’t, Leo.” He insists, matching the crossed arms and sharp gaze. “She’s changed.”

“She’s changed.” Big Brother’s voice isn’t warming up, to say the least. “And just how, exactly, do you know that, Raphael?”

***

“Ten months.” April says, pacing slowly. The cuffs are gone, finally, but only because they’ve been relocated from the booking room into a private cell for two (courtesy of Detective Marx, no doubt) and there’s no longer a need for restraints. “Almost a year.”

“Yes.”

April looks like an overstimulated wire: trembling, hands clutching at air, eyes darting around the cell—then, abruptly, swiveling in place and fixing Karai with an impressive glare. (Really, if looks could kill…) “I should kick you all the way to the California coastline.”

“That would be a pleasant reprieve.” Karai answers, dryly. “I’ve never been to the beach.”

The brunette snarls at her, momentarily incoherent, then presses a hand to her brow—more specifically, the twelve stitches she received an hour ago—and mutters something under her breath. The silence follows, thick and heavy between them, before Karai sighs. “It isn’t what you think, April.”

“Then, by all means, inform me.”

“I will,” Karai says, quietly, “when I think you’re willing to actually listen.”

***

“Ten months? _Ten_ months??”

“Don’t you start with me, Leo!” Raph retorts, bristling like a wet cat. “You’re the one who was sneakin’ out for a year to meet some girl you saw on the streets!”

“Do _not_ bring Celine into this!”

“She’s part of it!” he should back down, when his brother is so close in the personal bubble and tempers are already flared, but damned if he will. This is his woman’s honor at stake, and he’ll defend her even if she’s not around to see it. “All those years you gave us grief about ‘blurring the lines’ and all that crap, between us and them—and you turned out a frickin’ hypocrite!”

“Celine didn’t break into our home!” Leo’s right there, right in his face, and he’s definitely pissed, “She didn’t put us in cages, try to bleed us dry! She didn’t try to kill us!”

“Oh, so that’s it!” he presses closer, unafraid, unmoved even by his brother’s temper, “You think I’ve forgotten all that? That what you think??”

“If you remembered any of it, you wouldn’t be sneaking off to meet with her!”

“You haven’t been there, Leo!” he shoves him, just to get Leo out of his face, out of his personal space, “You weren’t there when she popped off two Dragons before they could get a shot off at me. You weren’t there when the fights went south and she took the fall with the cops, just so I could get away. You weren’t around when she pulled a bullet outta my arm. You weren’t there, and you don’t know her. Not like I do.”

“She’s using you, Raph!”

“No. No way.” And he will never believe it, not now and not ever. Once, he may have, but that time feels a lifetime ago instead of the year-shy it really is. “Not after all the crap with the Dragons. Not after the mess with the cops. Not after Christmas, and New Year’s, and…” and three weeks prior, when three words tumbled off her lips and made everything real, “…no. No. Karai and I…we’re partners. We’re a team.”

***

“We’re in love.”

April agreed to listen, has at least appeared to be actively listening and not dismissing every spoken word as rubbish, but this is the one thing she wasn’t prepared to, or didn’t want to, hear.

“You don’t love him.”

“Yes, I do.”

Blue eyes flash, dangerously bright. “You _dare_ say that. After everything you did.”

“And you’re such a saint?” Karai snaps, matching the cold tone; she may have an ugly past, but she will not have the most intimate confession of her life questioned, “In case you’ve forgotten, April, it was _your_ wagging tongue that brought the Foot Clan to their door.”

The pain is sharp, painfully clear across her face, and Karai lets the guilt fester for a minute before softening her tone. “I…have done things I am not, nor will I ever be, proud of. But I am changing. Raphael is changing me. He…”

She pauses. Even blushes, much to her shame. April notices—the silence, or the blush, or both—and tilts her head in reluctant curiosity. “He what?”

Feeling like a schoolgirl, confessing at some obscure slumber party, she swallows. Her hands play nervously in the thin bedsheets, tugging them close like a security blanket. “I…” she wets her lips, “For years, Shredder did not use me as a warrior. I was trained, mostly of my own volition, but that was not his purpose for me. Instead, I was…I was bait.”

“Bait?”

She lifts dark eyebrows. April blinks, then grimaces. “Oh.”

“I am not beautiful.” Karai continues. “I have never been beautiful. But I am smart. Always have been. I could read people with ease. Reading men, the kind of men I was sent to corrupt, was ridiculously simple. They were as base and primitive as can be. I was not some voluptuous Aphrodite, but I could turn them into putty with a few words and…well, you get the idea.”

April offers a non-descript sound. “The point is,” before the brunette can demand it, “once Shredder saw fit for me to wear the armor and conduct myself as a soldier, I had no need for such carnal mannerisms. Likewise, I had no need for men. They were under my command, as a ranking officer, and they either served their purpose before being disposed of, or they lasted a little longer than most. They were disposable. Useless. A few made vulgar advances, likely to stave off boredom, and I…” she doesn’t want to continue, doesn’t want to reopen that door, and April (thankfully) does not demand it, “…The thought of being touched by male hands was repulsive. I carried the memories of whoring myself out like scars on flesh. If I allowed myself to succumb to any invitation, it would have been to bleed myself fresh again. I was unwilling to be so vulnerable.”

No answer follows, but the pensive expression tells her to continue, that April actually wants to hear this tangent to the end. “After…after everything with the Purple Dragons, after fighting side-by-side all those nights; seeing him, getting to know him…Suddenly, the thought of…of being with him…”

April blinks, twice. “Because it had been that long?”

“Because it was _him_.” Karai shifts, stretches across the bed. “Which is something I think you can relate to quite well.”

***

“You…you are unbelievable, Raph. Just unbelievable.” The lecture is approaching its second hour; Donnie and Mikey have since retreated to their respective corners of the room (Mikey to his comic books, Donnie to his computers) and are clearly trying to not listen. He sits, glares at the floor, and Leo keeps talking and talking and talking. There are tangents, random grievances dropped clumsily into the spew of dialogue, but it all circles back to the originating point: that he, Raphael, would possess such lacking sense to be with, to want, to love someone like Karai.

And he can’t take it anymore.

“Why the hell not, Leo?!” he explodes, interrupts his brother’s latest stream of thought, with such ferocity that Mikey yelps quietly and Donatello visibly flinches, “What is it, huh? You’ve got Celine! Mikey’s attached twenty-four-seven to his redhead! Donnie might as well put a ring on April’s finger and seal the deal already! But me? Oh, no, none of that for ol’ Raphael! He’s too busy lifting weights and pummelin’ the bag! He’s too _stupid_ to fall in love!”

“That’s not—”

“The hell it’s not!” he shoves himself upright, “Don’t play the choir boy with me, Leo! I know what you think, what you all think! Raphie’s the muscle and don’t got the brains for anything more! Leave all the thinking to the fearless leader, or to the genius boy here!” he gestures at Don; briefly feels guilty at the way his brother’s features furrow, visibly hurt, but the blood’s running too hot in his veins for regret to stop him, “But I…I love her, Leo. I love that woman, and she loves me! Is it so much to ask, that my big brother not spit all over that?”

“…Raph—”

“I’m goin’ to the jail.” He’s not in the mood for any more talk. Not from Leo. Not from Mikey. Not from anyone.

“No, you’re not!”

“You just try and stop me!”

“Raph—”

“Everyone, _sit down_.” Celine, otherwise the soft-spoken one among the ladies, comes in like a bullet off the wall. Stone-faced, blue eyes sharp, it’s pretty remarkable how a gal so sweet-faced can look like a saber-toothed tiger in their doorway.

“No one is going anywhere.” She continues, stepping forward with arms folded tight. “Not until everything has been said and tossed out in the open. And I believe Raphael still has a few things to say.”

…Well, as long as the lady gave permission.

***

The temperature drops enough to be uncomfortable, and bedcovers in this cell want for both warmth and comfort. Karai shifts, tosses and turns, and hopes for sleep until the sound of shivering punctuates the air.

“April?” she sits up, looking across the short distance to a dark shape huddled beneath blankets. When no answer immediately follows, she feels tension spike her nerves. “April?”

A low sound, too much like a whimper for comfort, demands immediate action: Karai tosses the useless covers aside and darts across chilled concrete to the second bedside. “April, say something.”

There is no proper lighting in this place; filtered moonlight through barred windows is the best available. Blue eyes flicker, looking much too heavy, and their gaze is unfocused. Karai sets a palm to the other woman’s brow and finds it hot, slick with sweat.

“I…don’t feel so good…” April speaks, but without true coherency. Her words are slurred on the tongue, and spoken with too much effort. She’s shivering, violently now, and her skin grows wet with perspiration.

There are no options: Karai has no trust for these men and women in blue, and it is far too late in the evening. To take April outside the jail means a hospital, but it equally means a possible confrontation with the Dragons. She fears they may already be there, outside, waiting. Patience is not their virtue, and revenge is their art.

She grabs the blanket and sheets from her cot and drapes them urgently over the quivering shape. The bed is small, terribly small, but she will make herself fit. She presses herself between cold wall and hot body, enfolding April’s trembling shape in her arms. She wills this fever to be her own, to leave one body and enter another. She can take it; she can suffer this malady and still stand strong. April doesn’t deserve it.

(April doesn’t deserve anything of this night. It was Karai’s fault, all of it. Yet it is April, the innocent one between them, with that ugliness marring a smooth brow and fever coursing hot under skin.

…and Karai thinks, maybe, she is wrong to believe in her own redemption. Maybe she is only capable of destruction.)

***

“All I want is for us all to be on the same page. That’s it!” Leo is pacing a hole in the floor, hands waving wild, “Is that so much to ask?!”

“Why do you want everyone on the same page?”

Raphael threw out his grievances for over an hour. Donnie and Michelangelo have pushed themselves into a corner, trying to disappear. So now, it’s Leonardo’s turn. He isn’t holding back any punches, and Celine can see hurt creasing the faces of both silent brothers, and pooling dark in Raphael’s gaze amidst a furious glower.

“Why?” Leo looks at her, disbelieving, and she’s a little insulted, “That’s how things get done, Celine! It’s how they get done _right!_ ”

“No, Leonardo,” she stands up, neatly closes the distance between them, and doesn’t let herself get too pleased when he actually looks startled at her sudden change in demeanor, “that is how things stay stagnant. That is how things get done the way they’ve always been done, even if that way has failed time and time again. When you are in charge of a team, you want different views, different personalities. When you are a brother, you encourage your siblings to see the world differently. You don’t lecture them for having an opinion apart from your own, and you certainly don’t turn a happy announcement into an apocalyptic outburst!”

“Happy announcement??” he waves at the air, in the vague direction of a brother who looks fit to knock teeth out of place, “He’s—”

“In love.” Celine says, perfectly calm in the face of his distress, “Raphael is in love, Leo. Just as the rest of you.”

“You don’t know—”

“I do know.” her fingers lay gently over his mouth. “And so do you. It would serve you well to remember Dad’s words about forgiveness, Leo. You cannot very well say you’re applying the practice in life if you aren’t willing to extend it to everyone.”

“What that woman did—”

“Was put into motion by April, if you recall.” Celine lifts her eyebrows, gently, to emphasize the point. “You cannot elect to forgive one and not both. If Karai was going to hurt your brother, she would not have put so much time and effort into manipulating him. Her past actions don’t speak to such pronounced dedication to an inevitable betrayal.”

“Glad someone’s got a brain cell around here.” Raphael growls; Leo throws him a glare, but it lacks the earlier vehemence. He looks tired. Tired and frustrated. After a pause, he lowers to the nearest seat and runs a hand heavily down his face. The gesture upsets his mask, but he doesn’t bother to adjust it. 

“I don’t want to see them get hurt again.”

It would be an overstatement to say Leonardo’s confession breaks the tension: Raphael still has anger clinging to his expression, and both Donatello and Michelangelo look uncomfortable to witness their eldest sibling in a moment of vulnerability. Celine comes a little closer; kisses him at random, gentle and reassuring. “If you haven’t known Karai in all this time—and you never really knew her from the beginning—why are you so certain she is the sort to cause harm?”

His mouth opens, hangs there for a minute, and then closes without an answer. After a minute, his head leans into her shoulder. The silence implies peace, or so the youngest brother presumes, clearing his throat with a quip about the ‘big guns’ being put away. Donatello, still at his computer station, now appears lost in a bout of frustration: he’s furiously pounding away at the keyboard—and without success, as evidenced by his sudden interruption of the peace with an uncharacteristic curse exploding off his tongue.

“Donatello!” Leo sounds scandalized; Celine, privately, recalls when a similar explicative erupted from his lips, though in a slightly different set of circumstances.

“Well, I’m sorry, but this system is a sluggish, antiquated, useless insult to the twenty-first century and deserves to be put out of its misery!” Donatello shoves himself backwards (the wheels scrape, loudly, on the concrete floor) and abruptly stands. “C’mon, Raph,” he beckons to his brother, “we’re going to the jail.”

“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going through that head of yours, little brother.”

Speaking in a genteel manner (somewhat, anyway) seems to alleviate the previous tension; at least, it’s enough to make Donatello pause mid-step and sigh. “I hacked into the in-car system, when April and Karai were taken downtown,” he says, not nearly as rushed as usual, “April used Morse code—just like we agreed, if anything like this would ever happen—and told me what happened.”

“And—?”

“—And it was just a bad night all around.” There’s impatience to his words; surprising, by virtue of Donatello’s frequency to explain and explain until there is not more explaining to be explained. “The point is, she was having trouble with the words. –Keeping them straight, I mean. I think she might be hurt.”

“Maybe she was just trying to keep a low-profile, bro?” Michelangelo offers, not doubt with good intentions. “You know, keep it all on the D.L.?”

“Morse code requires tapping, nothing more.” Celine says, not unkindly, but with a frown creasing her brow. “It would be passed off as a nervous reaction—or, perhaps, boredom. There would be no need to, literally, stutter her words.”

“Exactly.” The urgency is bubbling out of his mouth now. “Something is wrong. We have to go now. Right now.”

“Don,” Leo begins, hands lifted to pacify, “just—”

“Leo!” for the second time in five minutes, the words explode out of the most soft-spoken brother, and it jolts the air between everyone like electricity. “April is hurt. _My_ April is hurt. I am going to that jail, whether you—”

“—Uh, dudes?” Michelangelo interrupts, “Donnie? Your…thing-a-ma-bob is beeping and…doing stuff.”

Technical terminology was never the youngest brother’s expertise, but it earns Donatello’s attention. He rushes back to his computers, to a screen illuminated and, as Mikey eloquently phrased it, ‘doing stuff’. Behind his glasses, both eyes widen to extreme proportions right before he runs for the weapon room. Leo (and, half a second later, Mikey) run after him, shouting questions and demanding answers. Raphael and Celine remain, silence settling between them. Finally, he coughs, twice, into his fist. Then he clears his throat and shifts in place.

“So, uh…” he clears his throat again, “That, uh…that was really something. You. You standing up for me, like that.”

Celine shrugs, gentle smile on her lips. “That’s what family does, Raphael. Just because I love him doesn’t mean I think he’s always right.”

He cracks a grin. “There’s somethin’ ya don’t hear in the chick flicks.”

The other three brothers return, as quickly as they left: a great scuffle of chatter, arguments, and shouts left and right. Celine rolls her eyes, huffs a short breath, then shrugs and clears her throat, loudly. Eventually, it gets their attention.

“So, are we going to the jail or not?”


	2. Chapter 2

Recipe for current disaster: start with an ungodly hour of the morning and throw in a holding cell in the city jail; mix in a partner sweat-soaked and half-delirious with fever, sprinkle the building with about a dozen tattooed gangbangers, and litter the floor with five jail officers (either unconscious or possibly, judging by the amount of blood surrounding their limp forms, deceased). Finish the whole concoction with one seven-foot mountain of muscle mass, wearing a grin and cracking his knuckles, one by one, and this evening has dropped into the seventh layer of Hell.

“You look well, Karai.” Hun rumbles, cracking the knuckles of one hand louder than necessary. “Rather pretty for a gutter rat.”

“The only rat around here is the one attached to your head.” Karai responds, teeth gritted. Granted, the comeback wants for creativity, but time is not to be wasted on clever quips. She’s surrounded on all sides, Hun looks fit to pick his teeth with her, and April can barely get on all fours, let alone stand up.

Her eyes dart, frantic, around the cell. The door is closed, locked, but Hun will have it pried open in a matter of seconds. The others are gathered around him, rabid dogs prepared to strike as soon as access is granted. The air vents are too high. The bars are too thin to wriggle through, and would take too long to even try. There’s no escape through the floor.

…The door…

“Karai and I are going for a little chat. Outside.” Hun announces; his fists are on the door and the metal is creaking, loudly, “The rest of you, take care of the little brunette. Make it slow.”

Her blood ignites. The door cleaves to the left, and the lock pops. She grabs her boots and flings both at the overhead fluorescents like a major league pitcher. By sheer dumb luck (emphasis on ‘dumb’), the lights not only spark out, but the blow dislodges a bulb entirely. It swings down and cracks against Hun’s skull. Hardly enough to do damage, but it’s a distraction and she’ll take what pitiful scraps of luck will be thrown her way.

She grabs April’s hand and yanks her off the cot. The brunette stumbles, crashes into Karai from behind, and loses her footing twice. They manage to clear the confused mass of tattooed gangbangers, cursing and shouting in the electrical wiring that’s falling from the ceiling, before April goes halfway to the ground.

“I’ve got you.” Karai says, roping both arms around her waist and hoisting the other woman’s weight as her own. Where this strength comes from, where this energy comes from, she hasn’t the faintest idea. She only knows that she has to get them out of here. _Now_.

But how? Where?

Out the door? It’s the most logical, of course, but the damaged light makes it difficult to see, and the floor is slippery with blood. (Her ankle bumps against a body, and she privately winces when there is no sound of protest.) More to the point, she can’t trust there aren’t more Dragons outside, just waiting. So what option does that leave?

_The roof._

She’s tempted to play some Hollywood Bond lady, kicking in doors like a boss, but that would attract attention and she still has half a brain left. Whether that will be enough to survive this disaster, who the hell knows?

They get halfway up the second floor when April squeezes her shoulder and gasps out a plea to stop, to rest. Karai would rather not, but her legs burn and her lungs are happy to remind of the need to gulp down air for longer than half a second.

Her eyes lift and find April, leaning into the wall. Her normally silken locks are mussed and hang limp around facial features which look horribly gaunt. Thick shadows carve into white flesh, hollow her eyes like a corpse—and her eyes are a clouded blue, veiled thick with fever. Her skin is visibly slick, far worse in this illumination, and each breath is heavily labored.

“April…” what, really, what can she say? Weak assurances about how everything is going to be alright? Some sappy drivel about ‘chin up’ and ‘press onward’? No…no, never: she respects April too much (even if the feeling isn’t mutual) to spout of that nonsense.

“We…” a slow breath, “We have to keep moving. The…the roof, right?”

“Yes, yes. Come on.” She motions, but April shakes her head.

“No. Carrying me will only slow you down. I can walk.”

“Like hell you can.” Karai retorts. The woman is leaning into a wall like it’s the only thing between her and a cold concrete nap (which, honestly, it probably is); she’s sweating and shivering violently, panting, and her eyes look terribly unfocused. Nevertheless, her words seem to be an unintentional challenge, because April pushes herself upright and, despite swaying alarmingly to the left, steadies herself on both feet.

“We have to go. Now.” April insists, stumbling a bit en route to the staircase. “They won’t be distracted forever.”

“Let me carry you.”

“I said—”

“I _know_ what you said, damn it!” Karai snaps. “I also can see the way you’re about to fall over the railing. Now will you stop being so high-and-mighty and just let me _help_?”

They don’t have time for silence, but it still settles between them for a moment. Fever-wracked mess that she is, April still has the determination to stand on her own two feet. There is something to admire about the woman’s stubbornness. Something to admire, and respect, about how fervently she fights—fights against the odds, fights enemies, fights to live and, most prominently, love.

“When I can’t stand on my own two feet,” she says, very slowly, “then I will tell you. I promise.”

It’s a compromise, but it’ll do. In the meantime, from below, voices are approaching. Further negotiations aren’t available.

***

The janitor’s closet is just about the lowest Karai has ever stooped, but this night has been a night of firsts and this one is just another to add on the proverbial list. More to the point, April needed another rest, and they’ve put a couple more floors between them and the band of Dragons fit to do all manner of unmentionable things.

“Here,” she twists the water dial; it’s for filling up the cleaning bucket, but all she cares about is the access to cold water. Absent anything better, she grabs a cloth, soaks it, and presses urgently to April forehead, now so damp with perspiration that it’s dripping in thick streams down her temples and cheeks. The brunette whimpers, softly, but leans into the cold press. Leaving April to nurse herself, for now, Karai grabs a broom and, after examining it for a minute, cracks the head off with her heel. The handle itself is sturdy. It should do a little damage.

It’s about the only thing they’ve got. Evidence rooms require too much effort to crack open, and any hope of stealing weapons off the graveyard shift were gone the second they entered the stairwell. April gave her plenty of grief, for not stopping to grab a gun. Karai chalks it up to the fever, because April O’Neil does not believe in guns, and the days wherein Karai resorted to their use are long-since passed.

The sound of April losing balance, again, echoes in the small space. This time, she’s on her knees, dry heaving. A broken sob passes her lips, chapped and dark from an earlier blow to the mouth (and, really, was it only a handful of hours ago that this horrible night began?), followed by another. Karai drops to her side, arm around quaking shoulders.

“Let me carry you.” She whispers; it isn’t normal, for her voice to be so soft, so gentle. She almost doesn’t believe it’s her own voice. But her lips are moving and her throat, dry from want of water, creaks out the words.

April swallows, twice. Then she nods.

She is virtually weightless when she should be a reasonable burden, draped across Karai’s back with arms woven loosely for support, and that reality alone clenches deep in the gut. She needs a hospital, needs a doctor immediately; needs water, and food, and…

…needs to survive this night. Come Hell or high water.

***

Raphael drops a remarkably uncivilized string of curses, right before he throws his fist into a wall and cracks brick off the foundations. Donatello, crouched by the fallen, wears an expression of bone-deep despair never before seen. None of them have ever smelled blood this strong, rotting on the air. Even Michelangelo, sweet Michelangelo, has lost all joviality and stares at the disaster with eyes wet: filled with tears he won’t shed in front of the others.

Then, Celine feels the stutter of a pulse beneath pressed fingertips, and a weak cough stumbles past the officer’s lips. In this silence, the sound is more powerful than a gunshot.

“Officer…Valdez? Officer Valdez,” she says, gently cupping his face as coherency trickles back from what must a terrible head injury, “my name is Celine West. Can you tell me what happened?”

(At a distance, Leo motions the brothers to stay silent and stay put. Mustn’t let the man have too many shocks in one evening, not when tonight has taken such a vile turn.)

The officer gropes for her shoulder, for support, and while she doesn’t think he should move without a proper medical assessment, she can’t stop him from sitting upright when she is his chosen anchor. Instead, she keeps arms around him, steadying balance, and lets him take a few deep breaths. He blinks, multiple times. There’s a thin rivet of blood streaming down his right temple. Her suspicions of a head injury just came into stark reality, and she reaches for his radio. Instincts bring his hand around her wrist, but his gaze is confused.

“I need to call for help, Officer Valdez.” She explains, easing her way out of his grasp. “You have a head injury.”

His bewilderment doesn’t fade, but he doesn’t stop her from making the call. Only when she’s done, when childhood witnessing of her father getting calls at all hours, what she called ‘cop code’ crackling the air, has been put to good use, does the officer suddenly regain some of his senses. 

“West.” He says, slowly. “You…you’re Dominic West’s girl. His daughter.”

“Yes.” She’s really in no mood to have another member of the NYPD start razing her about being the Butcher’s little lamb, but she needs the man to keep talking until the paramedics come. She can’t afford to be choosy about the topic in question.

“He was a good man.”

Celine blinks, jolted, and leans back to check for lucidity. “Beg pardon?”

“Your dad. He was a good man.” The blood is thinning in its stream, but she still presses the only cloth available (a sleeve from her jacket) to his injury for good measure. “I mean…definitely went off the rails in the end, but…if it’d been me…hell, I don’t know what I’d have done. I might have killed the bastards too. At any rate…he knew when the game was up. When it was time to just…wave the white flag.”

Her hands go still. “You…” her breath catches, tight, as realization dawns, “You were the one who arrested him.”

“Marx got the credit. Always does.” He winces, when trying to bend his left wrist; he’s tough, but she suspects broken bones in more places than his wrist. “But yeah…that was me. Silent all the way to booking. But right before I took him out of the car, he asked me to…to make sure you were kept out of everything. Everything that was about to go down.”

“He should have known you couldn’t keep a promise like that.” She’s busy tearing her jacket into strips, for makeshift binding around his wrist, but Officer Valdez’ recollections sting an old path into her heart. These were the details otherwise lost to her: those which she desperately sought to ignore, all for the sake of clinging to memories of her father which the media strove to rip apart.

“’Course he did.” Valdez groans as she begins to bind his wrist; she has nothing for a splint, so this is a poor substitute for what he really needs. “But it always struck me. At the exact moment his life was dropping off a cliff, his career and reputation destroyed…all he thought of was you. His daughter.”

(She can feel Leonardo’s eyes on her. When she blinks, tears start creeping down her cheeks.)

And then, without warning, Officer Valdez grabs her shoulder. “Oh God…” he gasps, as if seized by some terrible revelation, “You…you have to find them. Both of ‘em.”

“Steady. Steady.” She tilts his face for a shared gaze. “Who are you—?”

He doesn’t let her finish. “Miss O’Neil. And the…the other one. Black hair. Green eyes. We—I brought them here, tonight. Marx booked them for the mess at _Supernova_ tonight. I wanted to tell him…tell him he was wrong. Those girls—sorry, ladies—couldn’t have done anything. But he—well, whatever. Call for backup. The Dragons…they want them. I…they hit me from behind,” he gestures at his head, confirming what was already known, “I went down, but I kept hearing things. In and out, I guess. But I heard one of them—those punks, those bastards—talk about…K…Karen? Karrie?”

(Raphael stiffens, and for a moment Celine fears he might take out the whole wall this time.)

“I…I don’t remember her name. Just…just that he, the one guy, was going to take her outside. The rest could…could have the other one. Miss O’Neil. Said to…make it…slow? Yeah, yeah. Make it slow.” He pauses, then shakes his head. “I was…I was worried about her. Miss O’Neil. Head was knocked in pretty bad, earlier. Got her stitched up, but…yeah. That’s why…why I came by, so late. Thought maybe she’d rethink my offer. Take her to the hospital. They hit me from behind…” he trails off, “…screaming. They were shouting and cursing. Something exploded, by the cell. And then…I hear running. Yeah, yeah, they were runnin’.”

“The Dragons?” Celine asks, gently.

“No. Well, later, yes. But first…I think it was them, Miss O’Neil and the other one. Except O’Neil…she didn’t sound right. Like she was in a bad way. But they were running.” He jerks to the left and bites back a curse for his troubles. “That way. The stairs.”

(She pulls him back, straightens his posture, and glances over his shoulder once more. The brothers are gone.)

***

“You shouldn’t have made this difficult, Karai.” Hun growls, spitting away the blood from his split lip. She curses the pitiful excuse she had for a weapon; sure, a few of the Dragons are littered, unconscious, along the rooftop, but it’s barely a dent. And all she has for her efforts against the biggest threat is a bloodied mouth and a bruise above his right eye.

She’s only made things worse. She’s pinned by one Dragon, flat on her back, and April is being supported by a fist in her hair. The fever has broken what would be a mask of cold fury: the brunette is too exhausted, drained, and fear creases her damp brow in an ugly line.

“I’m impressed.” Hun continues, spitting again. “Back in the day, you and this one,” he gestures at April, “would’ve been at each other’s throats. Guess time changes things, huh? Now…hell, you two are best of friends.”

Maybe not; not in the strictest of terms, but right now it couldn’t be a more prominent truth: a reality blinding in clarity, wholesome and pure, and igniting blood as she watches Hun take deliberate steps towards the brunette. “No…”

“So now,” he towers over April, the smile on his face hideous and promising things that can’t even be described, “you’re gonna watch every second while she dies.”

“No. No!” she thrashes against the one pinning her. “ _No_! Hun, don’t you dare! Don’t you touch her!!”

“I plan to do more than ‘touch’, Karai.” He replies, right before the knife appears in his right hand. It moves for April’s throat, for a pulsing fluttering desperate within flesh, and Karai sees red.

“ _NO_!!!!!”

The one pinning her demands silence in explicit terms—or at least, he tries to. Her upward lurch and consequent crash of forehead into his nose turns a demand for silence into a pained yelp. The next blow, her bare foot square between his thighs, earns a shriek and topples him to the ground. The commotion distracts Hun; he turns, and for a moment he’s the towering giant, an unstoppable force of destruction, which she can never hope to conquer.

And then she remembers the death match. She remembers Angel: her brown eyes and copper-red hair; her cocky little smile and open laughter; her fiery spirit and complete disregard for personal wellbeing when it came to protecting the innocent. Angel was prepared to fight her way to freedom, for herself and for a girl she barely knew…and Hun would have let her die in that warehouse.

Her hesitation earns a deep cut from the knife, across the upper right arm. It burns, but not nearly as hot as her blood. She can’t hope to actually topple this mountain, but they are on a rooftop and she _can_ hope to have the mountain topple himself over the edge.

Agility isn’t his strength, but it is hers. She uses it to as much advantage as possible: namely, darting to the side half a second before he hurls both fists into her skull, and using the precious seconds available to grab April around the waist and practically throw her out of harm’s immediate way. It works, but she pays for the additional second she spared to make sure April was still breathing. The blow to her side feels like a freight train and sends her across the roof like a skipping stone on the lake.

“Fine.” Hun rumbles, knife at the ready and murder in his eyes. “I’ll start with you.”

The knife gleams, and her heart stops.

Then there’s an unholy crash, the terrible cracking of multiple bones broken at the exact same time, and Hun hits the concrete platform.

“Do not,” a fist drives into the man’s jaw and breaks it, possibly in two places, “ _ever_ ,” the next fist shatters an eye socket, “threaten,” two hands grab him by the shirt front, lift him bodily, and hurl him into the ledge, “my woman!!”

There is no additional commotion: the few remaining Dragons are dropped across the roof. Whether dead or not, she doesn’t care. All that matters is, across the way, Donatello cradling April in his arms, whispering things unheard while her fingers weakly brush his face and the tiniest smile curves her lips for reassurance. Leonardo is at his brother’s side, his emotions written across his face as he considers April’s state. She expects the fourth to be there, joining them, but he’s not. Instead, trepidation apparent, he kneels beside Karai and offers a hand.

“That…that was…that was something.” Michelangelo mumbles, almost shyly, as he lifts her upright. “The way you went at that guy…I mean… _wow_.”

“He was going to kill my friend.” Karai answers, plainly and, without a second thought, none-too-quietly. She wants the others to hear her declaration, and they do: heads lifted, expressions uncertain. Silence, then Michelangelo manages a tiny grin (there is something greater on his mind, and she suspects the officers fallen, stories below, are responsible) and whispers thanks. It rings in her ears like church bells, for no other reason than it might be the most sincere thing she’s heard in years.

In her peripheral, Raphael approaches. His knuckles are bloodied. She elects to not look past him and observe what is left of Hun’s face.

“You look like Hell.” He says.

“Pretty sure I look better than him.” she answers, glancing down at his ruined hands to supplement what should be obvious.

Raph shrugs. “Maybe a bit.”

She laughs, weakly, and breathes slowly. “April needs to get the hospital.” It’s stating the obvious, but she wants to get everyone back on track before they address the elephant around them.

“You too.” Michelangelo says; such a statement surprises everyone, not least of all Karai herself. “That’s a nasty cut.”

Oh, right. Her arm.

“C’mon, babe.” Raphael says, promptly hoisting her into his arms. “That mess isn’t gonna fix itself.”

(Privately, she wonders which mess he’s really talking about.)

***

“Three dead. Two in the hospital for who-the-hell-knows how long.” Marx tosses his coffee in the trash with more force than necessary. “And you. You, who wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

Stephen swallows, tightly. “I know.”

“Yeah, you know. You know, and you directly violated orders.” Marx takes a heavy step forward. “When I’m done with you—”

“Shut up, Marx.”

Stephen blinks, deer in the headlights, and jerks his head over the detective’s shoulder. Celine West stands in the doorway. She looks, to be perfectly honest, like crap: clothes rumpled like she slept in them, hair in distress, makeup smeared across her eyes and down one cheek. But damned if her eyes aren’t blazing like Mount. St. Helen in her prime.

“What’d you say to—?”

“I told you to shut up.” She finishes for him. The woman sounds like a mama bear with her cubs. “Detective Valdez returned off-shift because he had a legitimate concern for a woman you arrested without any evidence, and did not administer proper medical care to because you couldn’t be lowered to actually give a damn about another human being. You didn’t take the full facts of the situation into account, didn’t _think_ at all, and now three good men will never go home to their families. And that, Donald Marx, is on _you_.”

“You little—”

“I’m not done!” she snaps, loudly. “You have always been a wretched human being, Marx. I’ve held my tongue for years—all throughout that trial, every time you showed up on the media front page, every time you made a point to darken my door—but tonight isn’t the night for my patience. My best friend almost died last night. Good men are dead because of your idiocy. Now I find you giving crap to this man—a good man, a good detective—because he thought to have a drop of compassion. In short, I’ve had a bad night, and I am sure as hell not going to take one more bit from you! You have never had the common decency to treat people with respect or kindness! You are been at the frontlines, painting my father—who mentored you even when he knew you were a foul-mouthed, intemperate, pig-headed old _goat_ —as a monster and murderer. Well, that isn’t all my father was, and there are people in this city who haven’t forgotten that, despite you trying to _make_ them forget! The young woman Dad pulled from a burning car, when he was off-duty? She’s paralyzed for the rest of her life and underwent numerous surgeries just to graft her skin back on, and yet every Christmas I get a card from her with a handwritten promise, that she’s praying for my father’s safety in prison. The couple who lost their daughter at the age of _five_? They called me, four months ago: they just had another daughter, and they named her Dominique—in Dad’s honor, because he stayed with them for _every_ day of the trial. _That_ is who my father was. _That_ is the stock I come from. You, Donald Marx, are a poor and pathetic substitution for the real thing. And I will not let you berate this man into the same soulless stock from which you are cut!”

She pauses to take a breath (how she hasn’t passed out, Stephen doesn’t really know), then fixes him with a gentler eye. “I have to go, Detective Valdez,” she says, “but I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you. And maybe bring breakfast. Dad taught me how to cook, and it’ll be more edible than what they serve here.”

“You’re not—”

“Shut up, Marx.” Stephen says; his cheeks hurt, so he can only assume he’s wearing quite a grin. “I would like that very much, ma’am.”

Miss West smiles and walks away. He stretches across the bed and happily tunes out the next three hours of lecturing.

***

The lair is extraordinarily quiet, considering all four of them are home at the same time. Sensei has illuminated the living room with plenty of candles. It doesn’t drown out the darkness; the heaviness, the sorrow, still crushes down around them. Mikey stares at nothing; his face is wet with tears cried earlier, in the privacy of his room, before Leonardo knocked on each door and requested them to gather. Raph’s hands are bandaged thick, resting atop his thighs. Donnie looks exhausted.

Leonardo takes his place beside this brother, closest to him in age, and pulls him in with both arms. Too tired to fight, and perhaps welcoming such an abrupt change in mannerisms, Donnie folds himself into the embrace with a broken sigh. A tiny hiccup, lingering proof of tears, tumbles out of the youngest brother; it is only a moment more before he slips into the fold, between the first two, and seeks shelter from a storm which can never be fully weathered.

A few long minutes later, Raphael’s weight leans against Leonardo from behind. His hands, shrouded in white, grasp first Donnie’s arm, then Mikey’s. No words are exchanged. The silence covers them, but somehow fails to penetrate the sphere created by linked arms and bonds which no argument can permanently sever.

In the shadows, a father watches his sons. Later, he will address their grief, alone, one by one. For now, he protects this quiet space at a distance.

***

“I see the concept of front doors is still not one which you acknowledge.”

“Habits die hard.” Karai says, softly. Her right side is bruised north and south in shades of purple, two ribs are cracked, and her arm has about thirteen stitches in it. Trying to sleep without pain medication, weak as it makes her feel, is not an option. She left her loft about an hour ago, wandered rooftops aimlessly with distrust of the streets, and found herself here. It didn’t surprise her. The relief of slipping through a familiar window and entering a place which she doesn’t deserve to consider ‘familiar’ but does anyway…that was a little more surprising.

With the fever passed, April looks a touch better. She still needs a good night’s rest, more fluids, and her head injury had to be redressed (the rooftop blitz broke open some of the stitches and created new damage to the left). But she’s upright, lucid, and standing without assistance. The woman redefines ‘resilient’.

The dishwasher is quietly humming through its cycles. A kitchen window is cracked for a cool night breeze. A filled glass of wine rests on the countertop, untouched. April stands at the far side, gazing out the window with hands curled tight over the ledge.

“This has been one hell of a night.” Karai says, resting elbows on the marble surface. “No one would judge you for the drink.”

“I can’t.” April says, so softly it’s a strain to hear. “I mean…I could. But I…I can’t. Or, won’t. Whatever.”

She pauses, then adds, “Help yourself.”

“Not in the mood.” If she’s in the mood to toss back a drink, it would be an ice-cold beer. Wine won’t do the trick, after tonight.

It takes another minute (maybe two; Karai isn’t counting) before April says anything more. “We seem to have a habit of almost getting ourselves killed, you and I. Bad habit to have.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Karai grumbles into her hands, both of which are presently keeping her face from dropping into the countertop. The irony sits poorly with her: to think an evening in jail turned into a night of confessions, all because of this stupid over-used phrase. It can’t necessarily be blamed for everything which followed thereafter, but she’s half a step away from doing exactly that, just to blame something that can’t argue back.

April’s silence feels heavier this time; when she finally turns around and Karai lifts her head (mostly to be polite, not because she really wants to continue a conversation), the brunette’s face glistens wet with tears. It is a raw display of emotion otherwise denied to Karai, for reasons which need not be mentioned, and she dares a closer step.

“April…?”

Tears, still falling fresh, drip dark on her grey shirt and leave broken trails before fading. After this night, they almost look like bloodstains. Long slender hands tremble, and it’s easy to, at first glance, miss the report clutched between them. Of course, the poor slip of paper has been handled so invasively that Karai wonders if it might be legible again.

But, apparently, it was legible at least once.

“I’m pregnant.”


End file.
